The Breathing Trick That Can Instantly Calm Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common problems, everyone gets affected with it. However, with this breathing technique you can calm yourself instantly. Check out!

Calm anxiety with this simple and natural breathing trick that melts away stress and promotes a sense of peace. It can be done anywhere at any time!

We’ve all been there: we’re having a bad day, a bout of anxiety, or trouble falling asleep and what advice do we get? To “just breathe.” A well-intentioned partner, friend, or loved one offers up that age-old platitude and somehow it only serves to stress us out more. Why is something so simple (and so essential to life) difficult to remember in the middle of an anxiety attack or another sleepless night?

When we’re feeling tense or stressed, it’s as if we forget to breathe—really breathe. That’s because shallow, rapid breathing is controlled by the “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system, while long, deep breaths stimulate the opposing parasympathetic system—the one that tells us to relax. So while we’re always breathing, we’re not always breathing deeply, and it’s those full breaths that act as natural cues to unclench our tight grip on fear.

We all need a little reminder to breathe deeply throughout the day, but what if there was a simple equation you had in your arsenal that used the ratio of your breaths to actually promote a sense of calm in seconds? According to Dr. Andrew Weil, there is, and it’s called The 4-7-8 Breath.

How To Practice The 4-7-8 Breath

The 4-7-8 Breath, also referred to as “The Relaxing Breath” has been championed by Weill for years and is said to promote better sleep, reduce anxiety, and even help ward off food cravings. The technique is based on pranayama—a word you may be familiar with from yoga class—which is an ancient Indian practice that simply means “regulation of breath.” It’s an exercise that doesn’t require any equipment, takes less than a minute, and can be done anywhere at any time.